‘Do you still think about her?’
It was hard to describe the look that came over him. Wistful, maybe.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Every day.’
Then he slapped me on the shoulder. ‘But today’s not about me. Let’s get you wed, little brother.’
We got to the park half an hour early. I’d been worried it was going to rain, but the grey clouds of the morning had cleared to a cool, crisp afternoon, the leafy debris under the fig tree crunching, rather than squelching, beneath my feet.
Ten minutes later, the celebrant and the photographer arrived, and five minutes after them came Van and Annie, who we’d asked to be our witnesses. ‘Still can’t believe this is happening, man,’ Van said, giving me a bro hug I had to step back from lest I crush my boutonniere. ‘You and Sadie.YouandSadie.’
‘Me and Sadie,’ I echoed vaguely.
‘She was getting ready when we left,’ Annie said. ‘She looks beautiful.’
I blinked. I’d thought Sadie was spending the night with her sister.
Oh God. Had she not told her sister?!
‘As soon as the bride gets here, we can get started,’ the celebrant said. ‘Do you have any questions for me?’
I shook my head. She smiled, patted me like you would a dog about to go into the vet’s office, and went back to chatting with the photographer, casual and cheerful and calm, like she wasn’t about to fundamentally change my life.
In less than an hour, I was going to be married.
I was going to be a husband. I was going to have a wife. We were going to say some words that would change reality, and no matter how we felt about each other, I would be married toSadie Shaw.
Unless she chickened out. Because if she hadn’t told her sister…
I took a few steps away from everyone, deeper into the sheltering shade of the fig tree, and took some deep breaths.
Four o’clock came. Four o’clock went.
Four ten.
Four twenty.
‘I’ll need to charge you extra if the bride is much later, Dr Fisher,’ the celebrant said to me. ‘I have another wedding at six.’
I nodded numbly.
What a way this would be for Sadie to cement her ultimate victory. To really, truly, profoundly humiliate me.And you thought beating Elias for a job was good,she’d cackle to Julia, in some bar where the clientele was solely made up of Fisher nemeses.Let me tell you about how I beat Jonah for a job – and then left him at the altar.
‘Look!’ Annie said suddenly. ‘There she is.’
As a scholar, I had been trained not to make sweeping generalisations, but I’m fairly confident this is true: everyone who has ever got married feels like the time between laying eyes on your partner on your wedding day and them reaching your side is endless. No walk is longer than a walk down the aisle.
In our case, the walk itself was long. The path across the park was much longer than your standard aisle. The way time stretched as my bride walked towards me, though, was not simply geographical.
Sadie was wearing a white knee-length sundress, the skirt fluttering slightly in the breeze. So was her hair, pulled half back.Her handbag was over one shoulder, a bunch of supermarket flowers sticking out of it. With her other hand, she was pulling a cherry-red carry-on suitcase.
She was so beautiful.
And even at a distance – even with my terrible eyesight – I could plainly see that she wasn’t okay.
‘I’ll go and help her,’ Annie said.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ll go.’
